Planning

After watching a few examples of title sequences we saw a particular one that used the sound of a watch ticking throughout which created consistent suspense and mystery. We decided this would fit well with our concept as the person is waiting for the girl, so we are going to use close ups of the watch face and maybe speed them up to emphasise the time period and use the watch as the theme throughout the piece. We have decided that at the end of the piece there is going to be lots of quick cuts from the watch to the girl to the watch to the person and so on with a fast pace so that the pace is increased along with the suspense to create the climax of the door opening.

Camera Shots

Close ups

• The girls props and outfit to show her character
• Close ups on the photos to set the background and show what the "person" is paying interest to
• We are going to use close ups of photographs and pay particular attention to the hands of the person and the gestures they are doing to make the person seem more intriguing

POV

• The "persons" watch to emphasise the title of our piece which is Waiting. This suggests the person knows she is coming home and is waiting for her where as she is oblivious
• The rooms that the person is looking round so it does look as if we are looking with them and seeing what they are

Long shot/establishing shot

• We are going to get some long shots of the house with possibly the person walking round from the back so the scene is set and it is obvious it is a house
• Long shots of the girl walking home so we see what she is doing before we concentrate on who she is

Medium shot

• Medium shots of the setting in the house and the girl walking home will help the close ups and long shots flow together more and be the middle part to the intricate and establishing shots

Split Screen?
We have added a split screen to our two previous projects and have pretty much mastered how to do it and have found it always gets commented on positively whenever we include it. In this genre, thriller, we can use the split screen to emphasise how the two people are going to come to meet and this is going to bet the climax that the tension/atmosphere/suspense is built up to.

Planning

 Mise en Scene

One of our main aims is to present the characters through mise en scene and visual techniques rather than dialogue which can be easily cheesy and change the atmosphere to one less desirable.

We hope to portray the girl as young and vulnerable possibly even stereotypical as this makes the girl less specific and more relatable to a wider audience.
Possibilities:

• Skirt - feminine
• Bracelets - teenager?
• School bag - young
• Smiling with little make up - vulnerable/angellic?

The "person" isn't going to be seen as this is the whole point of the title sequence as to why this person is in her house what he is going to do and what is going to happen when she gets to the house.. which will be revealed in the rest of the film.

The props in the house will be things like looking through drawers where there will be items such as jewellery or stereotypical girly things.. maybe looking round her room at figurines of ballerinas or posters of boybands showing she is just a normal girl. There is to be close ups on photoframes to set some background for the girl, mostly pictures with family members to make her seem more vulnerable.

Thriller Ideas

IDEA ONE:

• A girl walking home through woods (shelf woods) and someone is watching her whilst she is walking through.
• Use completeley POV for the person who is watching so it is mysterious
• Do long shots of woods for a range of shots
• Increase pace towards end as though getting chased

Problems: Everyone in the whole entire world (slight exaggeration) does someone getting chased through a woods - orginality.


IDEA TWO:

• Someone searching for someone in a crowd stopping in slow motion on certain people
• Could be someone getting chased through a crowd or someone who is lost
• Use close ups of certain people to give off certain atmosphere

Problems: Not much opportunity for a variety of camera shots and limited to what can do as needs to be consistently in the crowd, could be misleading.



IDEA THREE:

• Someone is in a girls house as she walks home from school

• Cuts from the girl to the person in the house increasing suspense and making it seem like a journey reaching a climax
• Don't come to a  final climax as this can be the beginning of the film
• Use the silhouette of the person and POV shots for mystery
• Search through things such as drawers and looking at photo frames
• Use lots of mise-en-scene with the girl to show her character visually
• End with the girl opening the door

THIS IS SUPRISINGLY THE ONE WE WISH TO PURSUE SO HOPEFULLY THERE WILL BE NO PROBLEMS!

Changing Idea

 In the later stages of editing and after recieiving feedback from our peers we decided we wanted to totally start again with a new title sequence.

We decided to get our feedback verbally as it allows us to ask the person to expand or explain what they mean and possibly means they will give more detail as they arent having to take time to write it down

Top Feedback Quotes

"I thought the content was hilarious"
"The beginning part about destiny and fate is a bit too serious for the content"
"The links back to bad luck and misfortune show consistency"
"The concept is quite effective"
"The titles need to be all in the same font with same colour and size"
"The poo and wee is grim"

From our feedback and watching other peoples title sequences we realised that comedy is quite a hard genre to try and work round as everyone has different senses of humour and it is quite challenging to demonstrate skills when editing. The content and concept are too specific when doing comedy as half of the class thought the content was funny and the other half thought it was inappropriate. We have decided to attempt another title sequence and use the thriller genre with the intention to use a more effective concept with editing skills.

Things to consider for the next one:
- titles in the same font and style
- consider the concept more thoroughly taking audience into account
- plan a shooting schedule and use a storyboard more effectively so enough shots are taken and it flows

Feedback

 We have faced a lot of decisions in the editing process whether it be to change the music or add an effect which we have found hard to decide whether to do or not as one little thing can change the whole tone of the sequence. We have taken to our peers to help us with these decisions and most recently asked the group next to us to watch what we have done so far and comment on what they thought could be improved. They mainly said that the editing needed improving inparticular fading and adding extra effects to make it seem more funny and modern. We asked them what they would think to a split screen and they thought this would be a good idea as our footage exceeds the time limit and it adds a bit of variation. We have decided to add a split screen where the screen splits into four and we see a zoom on each indivual piece regarding the cat and it ends in us seeing the cats poo. We also decided to do extreme fading in certain bits where he is trying to get his deodrant can to work as this adds more comedy value. We are continuing to edit our piece to its full potential but do not want to interrupt its concept of a journey with too many split screens or effects.




 We showed our title sequence to a larger target audience of older teenagres (15-18 year olds) and recieved feedback to help us with our second draft. This is the feedback we recieved:

• Titles should all be in the same colour, font and animation.
• The cross-fading doesn't fit very well with the genre.
• The concept worked and was funny but the close ups of wee and poo were a bit too crude.
• The title of the film at the end on the green background didn't work very well.
• The beginning with the definition and talking didn't really fit with the rest of the title sequence but the concept of fate throughout worked well.
• The content was good as it works with the comedy genre and is funny.
• Some of the editing needs to be worked on.
• There are too many different things happening which makes it over complicated.

Sound

We have videod all this shots we need with varying camera shots and are now editing it to make the title sequence come together. Originally we were going to use the song 'ironic' as it fits well with the narrative as the main character has bad luck the whole way through and by the end receives good luck however, we felt the song didn't fit very well with the sequence when we played it so instead recorded a song called 'Life' by our freind Lucy.  With help from feedback by the target audience, we have decided to change the song to a more upbeat song as it is a comedy, we also thought we should have a boy singing it as it is a boy main character. The song we are using now is our friend's Charles Smith and Max Baxter's version of  'Mardy Bum' originally by The Arctic Monkeys.